Marion | Electronic­ equipment

Her name is Marion. She has a screw loose, because she is still our friend even after helping us on each of the four moves we've made in the last five years. (Considering the number of moves, I guess when it comes to loose screws, it takes one to know one.)

Marion is not just type A. She is type Double A. When confronted with a task, whether it's making dinner for an army of her kids' friends or arranging for a vacation or writing another book (she has around six of them now, I think), she takes no prisoners, no guff, and most of all, no lollygaggin'.

She arrived in the morning, and by the time she left that evening, we had a facsimile of a real home. Bookcases were filled. Glassware was put away. Electronic­ equipment was hooked up. Records (yes, vinyl) were alphabetized.

Granted, we still had a lot of what I call the for-nows. "That? Sure, that's fine there - for now." At least we had gotten enough put away that we had a pathway from the refrigerator to the bathroom.

Jessica and I kept the momentum going for a while, and then, one weekend, we took a breather.

We didn't organize the pantry. We didn't put away CDs. We didn't hang clothes that seemed to be breeding in their tall wardrobe boxes.

What we did was go to the movies. And eat out. Regular stuff, stuff that nonmoving people do.

It was glorious. Wondrous. Technicolorous. But it also leads me to a bit of advice for any of you currently or soon to be moving: Never take a breather.

Moving is the enemy. You don't work with it. You don't negotiate with it. You beat the livin' unprintable out of it. You keep it on the run. You must be merciless. Ruthless. It's black-and-white. You or it. You take a breather, it seizes on your weakness and, little by little, takes back its territory. "Wasn't going to a movie great?" it hisses in your ear. "Go again next weekend." And you do. And before you know it, you are living in a house where you can't tell the unpacked from the lived-in.